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< Piro >

Ok, it's the last six or so hours of the Megatokyo Visual Novel Project kickstarter, it ends tonight at 6:36pm EST, and it's been an *amazing* ride. Seriously. I had *no idea* you guys would get behind this project the way you did - it started with a funding goal of 20k to do 1/3 of the game with two characters, and now we're actually closing in on almost $300,000 for the FULL game with thirteen playable characters. Wow.

Um, I'm certainly not sitting here thinking "OMG we need to do MORE!" or worried about reaching our funding goal (we're about 1500% funded ^^;;) but i DO think that we should run the final hours of this thing out properly, so i am going to sit here and draw, sketch, doodle and otherwise troll everyone about the game and the content i'm working on for the game for the remaining time on the Kickstarter. I'm going live right now and will stay live till it ends later this afternoon:

Like i already said, i'm overwhelmed by your support for this project and more than a little excited about it myself :) So come on by and watch some live drawing, ask any questions you might have, and join the horde as we countdown to the end of days- uh, i mean, until this thing is done. :)

< RayKremer >

If MegaTokyo is known for anything, it's lack of updates. So, I need to update you on a few things.

We're going to be at Youmacon in Detroit next weekend, that's Oct 31 to Nov 3. As per usual, when Fred is not stolen away for convention guest duties or family duties, he will be at the booth providing autographs and quick sketches of MT characters. If you bring along an MT book, he'll put them on the table of contents page for you, otherwise he will use an index card. Yes, these are free. We'll also have some MegaGear stuff for sale, but Fred plans on bringing a somewhat lighter load than usual. He also signs art prints and posters if he's there when you buy them.

If you happen to remember the Kickstarter I linked for the science fiction book by Thomas "Chemiclord" Knapp, even though the funds didn't materialize, Tom managed to enter it into Amazon's self-publishing program, so it is now available in Kindle e-book and in dead tree format. Truly we live in a great age where short-run and on-demand printing can be cost effective and still produce a quality presentation. Tom's bringing a handful of his books along to Youmacon, we'll have them at the booth. I still need to get one and read it myself.

Speaking of books, many of you probably pre-ordered the MT volume 1-3 omnibus when it was listed by Dark Horse something like two years ago. Fred managed to get the cover art done, and then, well, a lot of nothing happened. However, things are back on track and deadlines have been set once more. If you have been watching the Fredarting live stream lately, you've seen the beach and swimsuit themed omake coming together that will be the new bonus omake material for the omnibus. I've also gotten back to work finishing up the long proofreading list that aims to address the vast amount of grammatical issues and the handful of continuity snarls that run through the first three books. I'm hoping I can help Fred put together the definitive version of chapters 0 through 4.

With the push on the omnibus going, the visual novel game is on temporary back burner. That project went from "Let's see if we can actually hit the goal in 30 days." to "Holy cow, it's exceeding our wildest imagination." to "Now we have to actually have to make this game!" After some initial stumbling around in the dark, Fred did manage to lay most of the groundwork for the Piro route in the first segment of the game. Adapting a linear storyline into a branching one is tricky, usually that process is done in the other direction. He's hit a good stride now on how his unique twist on the genre is going to operate, and once the omnibus is on its way to the printers he'll be right back on it and hopefully it won't be too much longer before the rest of the game staff has enough to start working on. As I've mentioned before, the original planned timeline is now a forgotten dream, but there's genuine progress here so we're definitely going in the direction of having a real game to release at some point.

The thing that's suffered more than anything else is handling the internet sales at the MegaGear store. Somewhere along the line here Fred is going to send out everything he can, refund the rest, and put most of the store into a temporary shutdown for the duration of the visual novel development period. Over the past couple of years and with all the other things that have been going on, the store has been more than Fred could handle. He's just one man and is pulled in a lot of directions at once. That's an explanation, not an excuse. We know a lot of you have waited for your orders for months and sent a lot of e-mails that haven't gotten responses. That's partially my fault, Fred's been counting on me to handle the e-mails and after a couple good months of catching up I dropped the ball on it. Well, since I haven't told you all individually that your orders aren't forgotten, but that I can't really say exactly when Fred is going to have a chance to address things, consider this notice, and sorry about everything.

On a lighter note, the visual novel's music man, William "Shaggy" Chrapcynski, is also on staff for a stop motion film that's currently raising funds on indiegogo. Please have a look and feel free to chip in a little if it strikes your interest.